William
Strong was born in Connecticut on May 6, 1808. His father was a
Congregationalist minister, which at that time was the established
church in Connecticut (Connecticut would disestablish the "Standing
Order" in 1818-1819). Strong was the eldest child of William and Marriet
Deming Strong. Strong graduated from Yale, and later returned to study
law, at a time when the more recognized school in Connecticut was the
Litchfield Law School (which ceased operations in 1833). After
practicing law in Connecticut, Strong moved to Pennsylvania. In the late
1840s, Strong was elected to the House of Representatives and served two
terms. In 1857, as the Civil War was nearing, Strong was elected to the
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. He remained in office until 1868.
Although a Democrat in the 1840s, by the 1860s Strong was a Republican.

In early 1870, Strong was nominated to the
Court to replace the retired
Robert
Grier. In May 1871, in one of his first opinions for the Court,
Strong reversed a decision of the Court from a year earlier, declaring
constitutional the declaration that the United States can force
creditors to take payment in greenbacks (legal tender) rather than gold.
In Hepburn v. Griswold (1870), a 4-3 Court had held such action
unconstitutional. Writing the Court's initial decision was Chief Justice
Salmon P. Chase, who as Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury had only
reluctantly agreed with Congress's decision to make greenbacks legal
tender. The Court was missing two members of the Court when Hepburn v.
Griswold was decided. Strong, along with fellow nominee
Joseph Bradley, were nominated by President Ulysses S. Grant in part
(how much in part is subject to dispute among historians) because he
knew they would hold the Legal Tender Act constitutional. In
Strauder v. West Virginia (1880), Strong wrote for the Court declaring
unconstitutional as violative of the equal protection clause state laws
that barred the freedmen (blacks or African-Americans) from serving on
juries. But Strong and Court also permitted states to evade equal
protection claims through types of discrimination not discriminatory on
their face. In general, Strong did not view Reconstruction as
substantially disruptive of relations between the federal government and
individuals. He joined the majority opinion in the
Slaughterhouse Cases, but dissented with Justice
Stephen
Field in
Munn v.
Illinois (1877). Strong was one of five members of the Court to
serve on the Electoral Commission in 1877, concerning the disputed
presidential election between Rutherford B. Hayes, the eventual winner
and Republican, and Samuel J. Tilden, the Democrat (see the biography of
Joseph Bradley for more information on this dispute).

Strong was a devout Presbyterian who
served on a number of religious affairs committees. He favored a
constitutional amendment declaring the United States a Christian nation.
Like many other Protestants at this time, Strong desired a formal
acknowledgment of the Christian foundation of American society, but was
opposed to an established church.